I'm confident a wise man long ago once said he "should have written that down" when trying to remember what was said. Then, many centuries later, an English nobleman named Lord Acton wrote down this phrase so English-speaking people could read it in 1857: "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men."
Before this, many similar phrases were used to convey the concept. An English politician named William Pitt coined a similar phrase in a United Kingdom House of Lords speech in 1770. The Founders of the United States of America were wise men who knew exactly what William Pitt and Lord Acton meant. They were very knowledgeable about history and the many authoritarian tyrannies that rose and fell during the ages. They also observed instances of historical governments that distributed power among society less corrupt and tended to last longer, like the Roman empire.
Our state and federal constitutions describe a social contract with the citizens of our great nation. These documents detail the terms for government activity and limits of authority. Exercising governmental authority within the framework of a constitution provides the consent of the governed.
There is a specific reason the members of United States legislatures are called representatives. The members of legislatures in state and federal governments are elected by its legal citizens to represent our interests. This is why members of our legislature are designated as our representatives in government.
The United States Constitution contains a framework of checks and balances that distribute government authority among the people's representatives. This document, by design, was intended to thwart those seeking to become tyrannical leaders with absolute power.
Article V of the United States Constitution is the ultimate check on a self-serving federal bureaucracy.
